Fallout: New Vegas Review (360)

Will you really enjoy your stay at New Vegas? Talk about a gamble…

Hello there! Welcome to New Vegas, please enjoy your stay. This is the land of dreams, hopes, gambling, oh and of course death and war for everyone! Fallout: New Vegas delivered an enjoyable stay; however, I would not go so far as giving it a five star rating but a serious recommendation is in order. This game, with some extremely rough edges, provides what is basically needed for a pleasant and enjoyable vacation. Fallout: New Vegas has a decently well thought out story line, extensive world, balanced and interesting level system, and in the end a great feel to the entire game. Fallout: New Vegas follows after the epic and groundbreaking game Fallout 3 where you live in a post apocalyptic world where the remaining humans have started to repopulate the deserted wasteland. Corruption, cannibalism, destruction, and war has spread across the entire wasteland and the human race desperately tries to cope with the harsh world of this post-nuclear war. You travel the cracked roads and forsaken lands in search of the man who tried to put you six feet under with a bullet through your head. But have no fear, the simple quest of searching for the killer will soon transform into something that changes the entire course of the Mojave wasteland – no surprise there. Fallout: New Vegas brilliantly puts together a top line first person shooter, as well as a captivating role playing game.

The RPG aspects offer a unique and spectacular diversity to the game. This adds importance to any decisions you must make. The animals and critters in the desert don’t give a damn how good your speech is or how well your bargain. For example, my extremely high speech and sexy pajamas did not help me when I encountered a band of Death claws and their leader. Therefore, having extremely high speech skills can be very useful in some situations but is by no means inbalanced or the “best” way to play the game. Any way is the best in its own way, and that is the true beauty behind Fallout. Choices also effect how people react to you, and how you will complete the quests you have at hand. Persuading the opposing force out of war and conflict or making them all explode with an electric rod, the choice is all yours. The one disappointing thing is that by the end of the story line, where the plot seems to go a bit astray and crazy, your choices seem to have little effect or not as much as desired. I would have loved to sneak my way into decimating all of my foes using the help of Yes Man, instead he becomes dictatorial and boring just like all the other factions.

Besides the choices that must be made there is, of course, some straight up, crazy fun, full of blood and shooting. This is where the VAT (Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting system) and cinematic endings shine brilliantly like a nuclear missile in the middle of a boring, repetitive field, where everyone waits and looks for the explosion. Now the reason I compare the VAT system to an explosion is because of the effect of destroying and completely annihilating someone’s head with a rifle. Let me make it very clear: this never gets boring, this never gets old, I love this, and got maxed out my gun stats because of it. Let me explain what the VAT system is specifically: by pressing the right button you can pause the game and pick where and who you want to fire at. You are given percent chances and shown how much damage it will inflict on each part of the body. Of course you have action points and can’t continuously use this. This seemingly broken and imbalanced system doesn’t take away from the first person shooter aspect of the game but instead enhances it, and also increases the importance of stats.

Fallout: New Vegas brilliantly puts together a top line first person shooter, as well as a captivating role playing game.

The deserted wasteland lacks in detail and the landscape, roads, broken rail-roads, and abandoned houses are always the same. No lush green trees, beautiful skies, or detailed landscape is needed in this post-nuclear war. Vision does not reach far, and travelling the roads is dull and boring. I understand that this is a post-apocalyptic world, but there is no excuse for creating a world this bland. New Vegas itself, which is supposed to be the prize and the glory of the game, turns out to be three small sections filled by scripted bystanders and separated by long load screens, but there are some hookers. It is the complete setting of the boring landscape, the depressing villages, and the mundane characters that complete this game in a very shallow way. Murdering everyone is definitely not difficult. Even my one favourite characters, “Yes Man”, turns out to be just as predictable, and scripted as everyone else. This disappointing shallow feel echoes throughout the entire game. Characters, landscape, enemies, weapons, and the main story line seem inadequate at times and fragile. Fragile meaning it can easily get lost under the boxes of any other RPG out there (except Final Fantasy XIII). The unpolished feel to the game is only more daunting when you take into account the multitude of glitches.

This game was released with many glitches and issues that needed to be fixed; consequently, the enjoyment of the game is slightly reduced from the start. Unfortunately, these random glitches don’t go away and there are plenty of them. For starters, my weapon would raise in the air like I just don’t care every once in a while. Sorry, this is rather difficult to explain but once in a while I would raise my gun and aim it down in the most awkward of positions. Also, some enemies would get stuck on a rock and run infinitely as I shot bullets into their private parts. These glitches did not help the experience and even though I could over look them they still caused some aggravation. I believe the most aggravation was caused by the unexpected and ridiculous grunts your character would make. This became annoying while using the most epic sword of the great East, yet the only noise that I would hear is my beloved character letting out some type of shrill/horrifying feminine and child like grunt/scream/weep. This debauchery is humiliating and only added onto the lifeless story line, bland characters, repeated landscape, and unpolished feel.

Fallout has always done a spectacular job at mixing futuristic weapons and ideas with the old feel of the 1950 or 1960’s. This gives the game a surprising sense of realism and enjoyment. Everyone knows the icons of Fallout and that is for good reason. This post-apocalyptic game is enjoyable, and fun; that is about all. It did lack in some feel and tone as the characters along the trail were generic and boring, and the quests soon became linear and lacked in some serious choices. I would not recommend taking long walks on the beach or spending too much time staring at the stars because those animals are ferocious. However, this is me being sceptical and critical of the game. I would recommend playing this game for the decent story line but mainly for the the gripping levelling system. This game is fun! It’s just not perfect… not even close. The first person shooter aspect of this game is enjoyable and you can easily get immersed into your character. Fallout : New Vegas doesn’t deliver a godly video game, but it does deliver one that could be worth playing. If you h
ave the extra money to buy the game than please enjoy your stay- well at least more than I did.